


Lena, Number Eight

by lena-in-a-red-dress (CSIGurlie07)



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, the umbrella academy au/crossover no one asked for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 00:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19187950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CSIGurlie07/pseuds/lena-in-a-red-dress
Summary: In which I imagine what Umbrella Academy might look like if Lena were one of the spontaneous births, with the powers to match.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a copy-paste from my tumblr page. Written by me, for a different forum, so if it sounds different from my usual stuff, that's why. It makes more sense there.

Lena is born on the same day as the others, and named Number 8. Her telekinesis develops early, and at first presents as largely pedestrian compared to the powers the other children possess.   
  
But then her genius starts to peek through. She’s the smartest of the eight, and she leaps ahead in her studies, and she develops an uncanny sense of the world around her at an early age.  
  
Then the predictions start.   
  
Except they aren’t predictions. There’s no hint of maybe in the way Lena predicts the outcome of a challenge, or the way she turns toward a target before it pops up– despite having no means to know its location ahead of time.   
  
She’s the hesitant one– the one who refuses to sneak out because she knows they’ll be caught, the one who pokes holes in their plans by listing all the ways it could go wrong.  
  
Lena displays no leadership qualities compared to #1, but on a whim, Lord Reginald assigns her as team leader for a training exercise.   
  
She gets them through with perfect marks.  
  
Luther resents the stroke of brilliance, but Reginald sees something else in the thoughtful certainty with which Lena considered her options and chose a plan of action.   
  
He does further studies, performs additional tests, and comes to the singular conclusion that Lena possesses the gift of precognition.

He determines it is an extension of her telekinesis, enriched by her intellect and physical sense of the world around her. There’s some psychic element to it as well… in close proximity to someone, her powers can narrow on that individual, honing her perception to even a few days out. The longer she’s with someone, the further she can see into their future.

Which becomes a problem when Lena sees Lord Reginald’s future, and the abuse he intends to visit on his children. She runs away one day, and alerts child protective services of what’s happening in the house. The resulting investigation comes to nothing, but it is Reginald’s rude awakening that Lena will prove more a hindrance than a help.   
  
He tries to control her, but fails. Lena is too strong willed, and loves her family too much to just stand by while the future slowly unfolds. She tries to warn her siblings, but they ignore her. They’ve already interpreted the special attention Reginald gives her as favoritism, and they shun her from the group.   
  
A solution to Reginald’s Lena-shaped problem arrives in the form of an old friend– Lionel Luthor.   
  
There have been attempts on Lionel’s life, and he’s heard rumors of the children Reggie is raising. Could one of them prove useful in ensuring his safety?  
  
Reggie gives him Lena. Her telekinesis alone is a valuable asset in protection. She’s delivered to the Luthor Manor and spends days at his side. And Lena proves useful, in more ways than one.   
  
Lena demonstrates an uncanny sense of danger. She hesitates at a crosswalk a heartbeat before a taxi runs a red light, clipping another pedestrian. She causes a gunman to trip before he can fully draw his weapon– he shoots himself in the foot, and leaves Lionel unscathed.  
  
Another bullet, sniped from a distant building during an outdoor press conference, slows just before it hits Lionel between the eyes. He watches as it seems to freeze, then veer away to burrow harmlessly in the sculpture behind him.   
  
The clincher comes the day Lionel is scheduled to leave for a business trip. Lena– who feels some affection towards the man who calls her by a real name and strokes her hair in tenderness– clings to his hand, and tells him not to leave.  
  
She’s young enough that she can’t fully articulate why, but there’s something in her gaze that gives Lionel pause.  
  
He delays his departure one day.  
  
The Luthor family jet explodes in its hangar, at the same time he was meant to have been halfway across the Atlantic.  
  
Now Lionel suspects there is more to Lena than Reginald led him to believe. Instead of returning Lena at the conclusion of their contract, Lionel offers to take Lena off Reggie’s hands for good.   
  
Reggie agrees– for a considerable sum. Lionel is all too willing to pay.

And so Number 8 becomes Lena Luthor, the adorable adoptive daughter that Lionel treats better than his own son. At first, she remains a protection asset, but soon her intellect for business comes to light. Lionel takes to asking her for investment recommendations, and Lena unofficially guides LuthorCorp to unprecedented profits.  
  
At first, Lex and Lena have a decent rapport. Lionel doesn’t share her gifts with the rest of the family, and so to Lex she’s just a companion, the little sister he always wanted.  
  
But Lena begins to out herself, little by little.   
  
When Lex complains about his fate as the next Luthor mogul, Lena reassures him that he won’t be in the role long.   
  
Lena asks to learn the same lessons as her brother, particularly those spent shadowing Lionel at work. When asked why, she simply replies that she wants to do just as well.  
  
Given that Lex has been born and bred to lead LuthorCorp for life, the fact she thinks she’ll have any opportunity to do the same is odd.  
  
But odder still is the way that Lionel cedes to her wish, and even begins to bestow more time and effort into teaching her than he does Lex. He trusts her insight is the result of her ability, and doesn’t bother resisting fate.   
  
If Lena is to be the true successor, then he’ll ensure she’s prepared for the responsibility.   
  
Lex notices all this, and starts to resent her. Lillian eventually learns the truth of her powers, and tells Lex. In an instant, the final kernels of his affection dry up, and in his eyes Lena is nothing more than an aberration of the natural order.  
  
Together, he and Lillian convince Lionel to send Lena abroad to boarding school. They tell him it will enrich her education, allow her to establish her own connections within their social circle.   
  
Lena hides her abilities at school, more closely than she ever did at home. But that doesn’t keep her from having her premonitions. She dreams one night of a fiery car crash, and her father trapped inside a burning vehicle. She calls home immediately, but connects to Lillian. Her mother listens to her tearful warnings, but calls it nonsense.   
  
Less than 12 hours later, Lionel is dead.  
  
They bring Lena home for the funeral, and she never returns to school. The next ten years are a murky period of occasional public sightings but general seclusion of the youngest Luthor. She only emerges from the woodwork when Lex is convicted of crimes too numerous to list, all aimed at destroying mutants and aliens alike.  
  
Just as she predicted, the board taps Lena to run the company. They don’t trust Lillian for her ties to Lex, and though Lena is somewhat of an unknown, she worked at Lionel’s side for years, and her intelligence is well known in the industry.   
  
Plus, Lionel’s will indicated that Lena was to assume control of the company should anything happen to Lex.  
  
She soon proves their vote of confidence well founded. She takes L-Corp to National City, and under her guidance it flourishes far beyond anything her brother ever could cultivate.   
  
There, she meets Kara, quickly finding it easy to connect to her warm smiles and gentle conversation. Finally, she starts to build the family she never had with the Umbrella Academy, or with the Luthors.  
  
Kara doesn’t know.   
  
She senses a darkness in the secrets Lena holds, in the way she’ll float past a question about her childhood or upbringing. But she doesn’t push. She lets Lena be, and cherishes their friendship as it starts to deepen into something more…  
  
Until one morning she walks into Lena’s office to find her best friend drinking at 11am. On the television, breaking news is scrolling across the screen.  
  
Metropolis Billionaire Reginald Hargreeves Found Dead.


	2. Chapter 2

Lena doesn’t plan to go back.  **  
**

Seeing Hargreeve’s face on every news channel dredges up every nightmare she’s tried to stuff away, and the last thing she wants to do is return to the house where everything started.

But his executor contacts her office with notice that she’s named in the old man’s will.

It’s still not quite enough to change her mind, but it moves her close enough to the line that when Kara weighs in, she doesn’t have far to push. 

“These are the people you grew up with,” Kara points out, “at least for a time.” She gazes at Lena with soft eyes and a softer smile. “Don’t you want to know who they’ve become?”

She sounds so hopeful that Lena can’t bring herself to admit that they were never really her family at all. Or that she started keeping tabs on all of them the moment the Umbrella Academy disbanded, if only to know that they remained very far away from her.

Lena agrees to go, but on one condition: Kara comes with her.

Kara readily agrees, eager glimpse the enigma that is Lena Luthor. As long as they’ve known each other, and as close as they are, Lena’s connection to Hargeeves was a complete surprise. Lena had never hinted, and it all drives home the fact that Kara doesn’t know a single thing about Lena’s past except what she’s read in the papers. She’s as hungry for details as she is desperate to provide Lena the support she needs.

When they finally land in Metropolis, Kara’s not quite prepared for how grey the city is. Or how large the Academy is. It takes up an entire city block, and looms tall over the surrounding buildings. Inside, it’s just as gloomy, full of old world decor and coated in the dust of a forgotten era. 

Lena strides in with her shoulders square and chin high. Her heels click against the marble floors, and the sound announces their entrance to the four figures already huddled in the lounge. As one, they all turn to face Lena with varying degrees of surprise.

“Whoa,” says one with dazed hooded eyes and curly hair. He gives an exaggerated blink. “Anyone else seeing this?”

“Hello to you too, Klaus,” Lena returns, chin high. “And yes, I’m alive, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“It might be what he’s wondering,” says another, a man with sharp features clad in dark leather and… knives? He turns to face Lena head on, bristling for a fight. “But the rest of us are wondering what the hell you’re doing here.”

“Diego…” The only other woman in the room tilts her head chidingly. Something about her seems familiar, and tickles at the back of Kara’s mind. 

Lena doesn’t seem fazed by the man’s aggression. Nor is she impressed by the blades he holds in each hand. Her only reaction is to lift the executor’s note, sandwiched casually between two fingers.

“I was summoned,” she replies drolly. She tucks her hand back into her pocket.

Kara recognizes her stance. It’s the one she uses to exude confidence and ease– regardless of how she felt. Even Kara never knew what was behind her mask until the moment passed, and Lena let the facade slip. Sometimes she was just fine. Others, not so much.

"And what?” Diego pushes, features souring into a sneer. “You thought you’d stop by for a quick payday?”

Kara bristles at the insinuation, but Lena only smirks.

"That’s cute,” she purrs.

The familiar woman speaks up again. “Diego–”

“What? If she thinks she can just waltz in here like she owns the place, looking for a handout, she’s got another thing coming!”

“She’s a Luthor,” comes the low response. “She doesn’t need a handout.”

The last figure among them steps into the pale light filtering in through a dirty window. Kara tenses when she realizes that he’s head and shoulders above the rest of the already tall family, and twice as wide.

The hulking figure lumbers to a stop, regarding Lena solemnly. “She could own this place, if she wanted.”

He meets Lena’s gaze, and Lena holds it completely unaffected by his intense study. “Lena.”

“Luther.”

A tiny smirk curls the man’s lips. “Hope that didn’t get too confusing for you in your new place.”

“Not in the slightest.”

Lena’s tone remains lofty, to the point of dismissive. Luther’s smirk fell away, challenge thwarted by an afterthought.

Kara watched them all carefully, and kept quiet as Lena turned her gaze to the woman who’d come to her defense. “Hello, Allison.”

"Hi, Lena.” The woman grins, and with a jolt Kara realizes she’s looking at THE Allison Hargreeves. “It’s been a long time.”

“Not long enough.”

Klaus snorts from his position on the couch. “I like her.”

To Kara’s surprise, it’s that small comment that brightens Lena’s smile. 

A large, hulking man lumbers forward, gaze hard. “And the plus one?”

“A friend… and moral support.”

Kara shuffles closer, wordlessly granting Lena the reassurance of her presence. The figures around her all feel large and imposing– she doesn’t know how much help she can be, but she’s there and she’s staying. 

“Well, then,” says a new voice, older and gentler than the rest. Kara turns, and nearly swallows her tongue at the sight of an upright chimpanzee walking towards them. He smiles at her and Lena in welcome. “It seems we can begin.”

The others settle in, but Lena casts another glance around the room. “Where’s Vanya?”

Diego scoffs. “Who cares?”

“She should be here,” Lena counters.

“Why should she?”

Lena blinks, clearly shocked by the cold rebuff. “Are you still twisted about the damn book–?”

“Fuck the book!” Diego snaps, gesturing with the point of the knife he held in his palm. “And fuck you too. This is family business–”

“Business for which Mr. Hargreeves requested Miss Luthor’s presence, Diego. Please, show some respect.”

The chimp– man?– creature?– turns his stern glare from Diego to Lena, and softens noticeably. “I am glad you’re here, my dear.”

Lena shrugs her eyebrows with a light sigh. “That makes one of us. Let’s just get on with it.”

“She shouldn’t be here any more than Vanya should be!” Diego counters, gesturing sharply. “She isn’t one of us! She doesn’t even have powers!”

Silence rang out in the wide room, as the occupants freeze. Kara freezes right along with them.

“Excuse me?”

Lena’s voice is low, and just this side of dangerous.

“You heard me! You lost your powers and got packed off because you couldn’t hack it at the academy without them, and now you’ve come crawling back, maybe not for money, but for something. Whatever it is, you’re not gonna get it, because you are NOT part of this family.”

“Diego…” Allison’s warning falls on deaf ears.

Diego closes in on Lena, gaze dark and predatory. Lena doesn’t budge, meeting his glare inch for inch even as Diego’s pointing finger glints with the blade still tucked in his palm.

“Whatever it is you came here for,  _Miss_   _Luthor_ , you are not going to get it. You aren’t one of us– and you.. aren’t… family.”

He punctuates with one jab too many, takes one step too close.

Lena doesn’t so much as blink when Diego is flung away from her, plucked away by an invisible hand that send him flying until his back slams into the far wall. He hangs there, grunting for breath under an immense and invisible pressure that pins him by the chest with his feet dangling three feet off the floor.

Kara’s heart jumps to her throat as the room suddenly seems to plummet.

It takes her brain a long moment to realize the room isn’t sinking, but that the items in it are lifting. Anything not breathing or bolted to the floor slowly rises, and hovers steadily while the rest of the Hargreeves stare in awe.

Luther recovers first.

“Put him down–!” His charge towards Lena halts with a single glance– he freezes in place, as stuck as Diego.

Kara stares. First at him, then at Lena, who casts a calm gaze around the room.

“Reginald Hargreeves was lot of things,” Lena delivers smoothly, “but honest wasn’t one of them.“

She has yet to remove her hands from her pockets. Her placid calm takes several moments for Kara to realize that the invisible force holding Diego and the room aloft is somehow Lena.

Normal, human Lena, gripping a man by the throat without lifting a finger. Kind, gentle Lena, whose invisible grip lifts Diego’s forgotten knife, dropped in the commotion. It spins lazily in the air, and floats so close it nearly nicks the tip of his nose.

When he swipes at it, his hand ends up pinned to the wall next to his head.

"You might have grown up, Diego, but you’re still small.”

The knife jabs forward, driving point first into the wall beside Diego’s head. He yelps, and then drops into a heap, released from Lena’s grip. The rest of the room returns to its rightful place in a more controlled descent, before slamming the last inch in a petulant clatter.

“We’re done here.”

She pivots smoothly, and departs, Kara close on her heels

“But you haven’t even heard what he left you!” Klaus exclaims, wholly unconcerned by Diego’s slow rise back to his feet, or the fact he’d been riding a floating couch for the last thirty seconds.

Lena doesn’t respond. She doesn’t slow until Allison’s voice calls after them.

“Lena, wait! Please, just– wait.”

To Kara’s surprise, Lena slows to a stop. Kara hangs back, willing to let Lena face her almost-sister alone, but not without backup.

Allison’s gaze bounces between them. The smile she gives Kara is cursory before she focuses her attention on Lena. “I’m sorry about them.”

“I’m sure.”

“It’s actually really good to see you.” Lena doesn’t respond. “I’d hoped we’d run into each other, after I left, but it turns out you’re pretty hard to get a hold of.”

“That’s by design.”

“I know it’s been a long time, but… I’ve never forgotten you.”

Lena huffs, rolling her eyes. 

“It’s true!” Allison insists. “You got out! You got to see the world, have a real family, real friends. There were so many times I wished I’d been adopted too.”

The foyer sits quiet around them when Lena fails to respond. Allison twists her hands together, nervous. “And it got lonely sometimes, growing up with so many brothers. I know it’s been a long time, but… there’s not many people who understand what this place was like. I’ve missed having another sister.”

Lena regards Allison for a long moment, features and shoulders smooth as stone. When she smiles, it’s without mirth.

“I wasn’t adopted, Allison,” she delivers coolly. “I was sold.”

Kara’s stomach plummets, a sour taste climbing up her throat. All the way here, she’d tried to prepare herself. She’d reasoned that if Lena’s childhood was a good one, she would have shared more of it sooner. But the confirmation of something dark and terrible makes her throat lock tight.

“And as far as sisters go…”

Allison stares at her, gaze edging on hopeful. 

"You already have one. Did you even call her when your dad died?”

Her only answer is Allison’s downcast eyes and guilty shuffle. 

“Yeah.” Lena’s features curl in a cold smile. “I’ll pass.”

This time when Lena leaves, no one stops her.


	3. Chapter 3

The moment Lena steps out onto the sidewalk, her hands start to shake in her pockets. Her stomach threatens to revolt, and her attempts to breathe through it don’t go unnoticed.

“Lena? Lena, hey!” Kara trots down the shallow steps to join her on the street, iron gate creaking shut behind her. Her hand touches Lena’s elbow briefly before drawing back. Lena hates the hesitation, worried it’s fear or disgust, but she’s also grateful. Her skin crawls beneath her clothes, prickling in a way it hasn’t for years. “Hey…”

“I’m okay,” Lena grinds out. She forces a smile. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

Kara meets her smile with a soft grin of her own. “Yeah, that– was definitely something.”

The words sound awkward, but calm. It slowly spreads to Lena enough to dissolve the lump in her throat, but her muscles remain taut, clenching against bone and sinew, clamping her in place. Trapped. It’s all she ever was– stuck.

She looks at Kara, and her friend visibly melts at the tears in her eyes. It’s clear she has questions– she must have so many. But she packs them away so that the next words out of her mouth are as mundane as possible.

“Let’s get some lunch.”

* * *

Kara gets lunch. Lena gets coffee.

Neither of them touch their prize, except for Lena to curl her hands around her mug to leech the warmth from it.

Kara tries not to pry, but Lena slowly opens up. About the circumstances of her birth– and those of the others– and their subsequent acquisition by Hargreeves. She tells Kara how Hargreeves sent her away, and how Lionel had been decent to her until he died.

Beyond that, she doesn’t offer any details. Not about how she went from being from one family’s science experiment to another’s. Not about how when Lionel died, Lillian studied her even more thoroughly than Reginald had. Not how the precision and control she’d displayed at the house was the result of countless hours spent training and honing her gifts, until her nose bled and her skull felt like a red hot poker had been shoved in her eye or through the top of her head or the join of her neck.

She says nothing of the six months she’d spent in a medically induced twilight sleep, neither sleeping nor waking, in an attempt to enhance her precognition. Nothing about the months she’d spent rebuilding the muscle she’d lost in her semi-vegetative state.  

What she does tell Kara is that she doesn’t use her powers anymore.

“The DEO can’t know, Kara. No one can know.”

Kara swallows. The hero in her reaches out for a kindred spirit, despite her better sense. “But Lena… with abilities like yours, you could help so many people–”

“I’m not that person, Kara. I’m sorry, but I’m not.” Lena stares into her coffee, mourning the tepid feel of the ceramic under her palms. “I know it must seem so wondrous, but– it isn’t. It’s brought me nothing but misery.“

She turns her mug in her hands, scraping the bottom against the table.

"Being in National City… building a life with you in it– That’s the real wonder, Kara.”

The air hangs thick and heavy between them. Lena looks up to find Kara’s jaw twitching with the urge to speak, but in the end her friend simply sighs. With that tiny breath of sound, Kara seems to release her expectations, and the need to try and fix it.

“Thank you for sharing this with me,” she says finally. “All of it. I know it can’t be easy. And I’m sorry if I pressured you to revisit a time and place you didn’t want to.”

Shaking her head, Lena can finally smile honestly. The weight on her shoulders lifts, little by little. “No, I’m glad you did. If I hadn’t, I think at some point, I might have wondered what could have been. Now I know.”

For a long moment, Kara’s focus turns inwards. Lena watches as her best friend seems to come to a decision. Her chin lifts, and she meets Lena’s gaze with an exculpatory grimace just shy of a true grin.

“It might be a little anti-climactic after everything,” she starts, tilting her head in that way she does when she’s nervous and can’t deflect attention away from herself, “but in the spirit of reciprocity, I also have a secret.”

Lena’s chest seizes suddenly, her heart jack-hammering at the prospect of another confession. A private one. One that could either burn her secret fantasies to the ground– or set them aflame.

Slowly, Kara reaches up and slowly removes her glasses. Then she removes the elastic from her hair, letting her locks hang loose around her shoulders. Those two changes alter the planes of her face, almost morphing them into features equally familiar.

“I’m Supergirl,” she says in a low voice.

When the small cafe bubbles with Lena’s laughter, Kara knows it was the right thing to say.

* * *

When Lena’s coffee goes cold, she doesn’t bother to replace it. They make their way to a nearby park and slowly walk the vacant paths. The city’s gloom still hasn’t lifted, but Kara’s hand in hers fills Lena with warmth.

“Are you ready to go home?” Kara asks. By now Lena can breathe again, and she takes her time considering her response.

She’s wanted to go home since the moment they got off the plane. She’s never liked Metropolis, with its gray buildings and gray skies and gray faces. Being here reminds her of the cold, excruciating days of her childhood, and puts the joy of her life in National City in stark contrast.

To her own surprise, Lena hesitates. “Not yet,” she says softly. “There’s one more thing I need to do.”

She leads them to an older neighborhood, where tall buildings house long, narrow apartments. Kara agrees to wait outside, leaving Lena to make the long walk up to Vanya’s apartment alone.

When she knocks, she knows Vanya will answer.

She’s not prepared for the shadow of a woman who opens the door.

“Vanya,” she says, covering her surprise with an awkward smile. “Hi, I’m not sure if you remember me, but I’m–”

“Lena,” Vanya supplies. She blinks, eyebrows shrugging as she seems to curl in on herself. “I know who you are.”

“I’m sorry to barge in on you, but…” Lena reaches for the right words. “You weren’t at the house earlier, and I wanted to offer my condolences…” She lets her voice trail away to nothing as Vanya’s features darken in a mixture of grief and resentment towards a father who was never quite a father.

“Or the appropriate equivalent.”

At that, Vanya lets her in with a tiny smile of appreciation. They settle on the couch, and sit in awkward silence until Lena spies the violin sitting on the chair by the window.

“I heard you play, a few years back” Lena confesses. “With the chamber orchestra. You were good.”

Vanya’s hesitant smile turns queasy. “Oh, uh… that probably wasn’t me you were hearing then. I was only fifth chair.”

“It was you.” Lena holds her gaze, brooking no argument. She softens her features with  another smile. “I read your book too.”

Flat, detached eyes slide away from Lena.

“I imagine most of the family feedback hasn’t been positive, but difficult honesty is something I’ve always appreciated. I also appreciate you leaving me out of it.”

At that, Vanya shares a commiserating shrug. “You’d gotten out,” she explains. “Didn’t feel right dragging you back into it.”

As they continue to speak, Lena probes carefully. Vanya’s choice of narration, from the perspective of an outsider… feeling powerless against a family who ostracized her…

“I have to say, I was a little surprised to read it. I knew you weren’t included on any of the publicized missions, but… I don’t know. I guess I’m surprised it got so bad.”

Vanya looks away, tucking her palms between her knees. “Being the only non-powered kid in a family of superheroes gives new meaning to black sheep, huh.”

Alarm bells clamor at the back of Lena’s mind. She struggles to make the connection, searching for the joke in her words, but finds none.

“You know,” Vanya continues, her voice tight in her throat, “after you left, I wanted so badly to be adopted too. Dad would have been out another disappointment, and I’d get a family like yours.”

Lena stiffens, but keeps quiet. Vanya doesn’t need to know that the Luthors weren’t anything to be proud of. But Vanya grimaces a moment later, well aware of the headlines that had swamped national news for months on end following Lex’s arrest.

“Of course, that didn’t really hold up, I guess. I’m sorry.”

Lena shrugs her forgiveness with a tight smile. The reminder doesn’t sting so much, coming from someone who understands the struggle of family neither chosen nor born into. Vanya sighs. “But at the time, thinking you were happy and free was like a fairytale. And if one person without powers could get a happy ending, why not two?”

Vanya echoes her shrug. “Guess not.

“I had no idea it had gotten so bad,” Lena gently maneuvers. “What changed?”

But Vanya can only shrug helplessly. “Nothing. That was the problem. When no powers ever manifested, there just… wasn’t any room for me.”

Lena blinks, searching for the joke, but doesn’t find one.

“You know, after you left… I used to dream Dad would let me be adopted to too. I figured, if one person without powers could get out, why not two.”

Lena hesitates. “Vanya… I don’t know why Hargreeves told you all that I lost my powers, but… I didn’t.” She sees Vanya’s disappointment and feels it all the way down to her bones.

“Oh.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“No, it’s not your fault. It’s good you still have them, right? Losing them after having them… that would have been– At least I never had any. Can’t miss what you never had, right?”

Again, it’s said without a single ounce of irony. Lena’s disquiet heightens, but when she opens her mouth to respond, the chime of the clock interrupts. The hour is later than she anticipated; if she waits much longer, it’ll be too late to fly, and Lena isn’t willing to spend the night in Metropolis.

“I’m sorry, I have to get going,” Lena sighs. “Here…”

Reaching into her pocket, Lena pulls out a business card. She scribbles her cell number on the back, and hands it to Vanya, who takes it with fingers that stutter on the cardstock as though numb.

“This is my personal line,” Lena tells her. “You can call me, if you ever need anything. Even if it’s just to talk. I’d… like to get to know you.”

Vanya stares at it, as though she can’t quite fathom its function. “Why?” she asks, blinking. “I mean, why me?”

Lena reaches out and touches her knee. “Because you were honest when the world would have rather swallowed a lie. And because I know how hard it can be, to feel like you’re completely alone. You don’t have to be.”

“Oh,” comes the soft response. After a moment, Vanya nods, lips trembling. “Okay, yeah. I think I will.”

“I look forward to it.” Lena smiles. “I should get going.”

“Right, yeah.” Vanya follows her to the door. Just as Lena is about to step out, Vanya speaks out. “I remember you.”

“Sorry?”

“Before, you weren’t sure I’d remember you. But I do.” Vanya swallows thickly. “I remember that you were kind.”

Lena gazes at her, unsure how to respond even when Vanya’s eyes began to glint with moisture.

“None of the others have ever seen me play. They only read my book so they could hate me after. And none– none of them even called when Dad died.”

Vanya swallows, ducking her chin to avoid Lena’s gaze. “You were always the kind one.”

Lena hesitates, then gives in to the urge to wrap Vanya in a hug. Vanya hugs her back readily.

“I’m sorry your new family sucked,” Vanya mutters against Lena’s coat. “You deserved better.”

“So did you, Vanya.” Her words hit Vanya with a jolt, before she squeezes Lena tighter. "You deserved so much better.”

* * *

When Lena emerges from the building, Kara is waiting right where she’d said she’d be. She doesn’t say anything, and only slows enough for Kara to fall into step next to her. They walk for almost thirty minutes before Lena has the sense to hail a cab to the airport.

Only when they’re in the air does Kara break the silence. “Do you really feel it was worth it? Coming back?”

Lena shrugs. “There’s value in knowledge. Even if it’s just knowing that some things never change.”

“Like what?”

“Like… Number One still thinks he’s hot shit. And Diego is consistently an inch away from a homicide charge.”

“And Vanya?”

“And Vanya… is completely normal.”

Kara knows her too well. She studies Lena, and discerns the uneasiness that ripples beneath her words. “What’s the trouble with that?”

Lena looks Kara dead in the eye. “Vanya has never been ordinary.”


	4. Chapter 4

When they return to National City, Lena does her best to forget the weekend ever happened. Kara does her best to let her.

But however unspoken, the new knowledge between them fills the last of the space between them, and joins them together in a new sort of intimacy. The kind that has Lena in Kara’s bed more often than not, which is where she finds herself barely a week later when her cell phone rings in the middle of the night.

Lena reaches, patting blindly at the bedside table until her fingers meet the vibrating face of her phone.

“Hullo,” she groans, pushing hair and sleep from her face with her spare hand. Kara burrows into her shoulder with a sleepy mumble.

There’s silence on the other end of the line for a short moment that only wakes Lena further. Then,

“Oh god.”

Lena recognizes the voice instantly. “Vanya?”

“The time difference– I totally forgot. I am so sorry. I–” Vanya rambles, then stops herself. “God, I’m so sorry.”

Then there’s silence again, and Lena realizes Vanya has hung up. Lena sits up and swings her legs over the side of the bed, shoulders hunching sleepily as she peers against the light of her phone screen.

“Whassit?” Kara rolls over and blinks sleepily at her in the darkness.

“She hung up,” Lena murmurs.

“Vanya?”

“Mhm. Go back to sleep.”

“‘Kay.”

Lena pads to the living in bare feet, and curls up on the couch to call the number back. She can feel Vanya’s reticence in every ring that goes unanswered, echoed in the voice that picks up on the final trill.

“Lena, I’m so sorry–”

“Vanya, it’s fine,” Lena promises, pulling a blanket over her legs. “Is anything the matter?”

“No. I just… I wanted to call, and it was just one of those moments I was afraid I was going to chicken out, you know?” Vanya groans. “The time difference didn’t even occur to me.”

“It’s okay, I get it,” Lena repeats, patiently. She smiles, and lets her eyes close. “I’m glad you called.”

Silence answers her. Because what is there for two women, once siblings now strangers, to talk about before the sun rises? But Lena hasn’t spent her life as a Luthor for nothing, and in moments she’s pulled Vanya into a conversation that lasts for hours.

When Kara wakes with the sun, she hears Lena’s faint giggle and ready response to something Vanya shares. She smiles, and goes back to sleep a second time, content in the knowledge that while Lena can’t reclaim a childhood she never had… she at least has a sliver of family to call her own.

The calls continue over the following weeks, gaining frequency until finally texts start happening as well, and updates almost feel like gossip.

That’s how Lena learns of the woodcarver who hires Vanya as a tutor, and then asks her to coffee.

“I think he likes me,” Vanya all but whispers. As though the concept is so far-fetched that saying it any louder would invite ridicule from the masses.

Lena leans back in her seat at the sound of it. Alarm bells start rattling in her head, but she keeps her voice light when she responds. “And do you like him?”

“Well, I mean… I barely know him. But– I like the way I feel around him.”

That isn’t what she asked, but Lena doesn’t push it. Vanya feels new– not just to Lena, but to the world. Lena can hear her wonder, and it reminds her of the first few months she spent in National City, and her own slow realization that Kara enjoyed her company as more than just a source.

“What’s his name?” Lena asks with a teasing grin.

She feels only slightly guilty when she sends it off to Jess later, with a note that she wants to know everything there is to know about one Leonard Peabody.

“It doesn’t feel right,” Lena says to Kara that night. She doesn’t have the words to explain that it’s the kind of feeling she used to get when Lionel was still alive. Not quite a premonition, but enough of a hesitation to keep him safe on the sidewalk while a speeding taxi clips another pedestrian instead.

Kara doesn’t understand, so all she can do is smile.

“What?” Lena asks.

“Nothing,” Kara returns, grinning still. “It’s just that you sound like Alex.”

“Like a government agent?” She supposes she has reason to, with the amount of security she has to deal with. With the amount of paranoia she’s had to embrace, just to stay alive. But Kara shakes her head no. 

“Like a sister.”

* * *

Kara doesn’t push. Oh, she itches with questions, to know exactly what Lena can do. She’s used to racing Barry, arm-wrestling Amazons, and sparring with her cousin just to maintain her title as Earth’s champion. It’s difficult to fathom having abilities and being able to tuck them away so neatly.

Lena doesn’t seem to hate them. Not like how Kara used to hate how clumsy her hands were, snapping every pencil she touched and ripping doors off of refrigerators when all she wanted was milk for her cereal. 

No, Lena just… carries on. Ignores her powers and ignores the breaths Kara takes to ask, only to release each one without a speaking a single word.

Kara thinks of that day in the Academy lounge, and marvels at the strength, the  _control_  that had levitated the furniture, all while Lena maintained eye contact with Diego. And she wonders.

How must it feel, to have that much power, and not be defined by it?

But however much Lena pretends their trip never happened, not everything remains the same. Kara starts to wake, some nights, to Lena tossing and turning in bed beside her, plagued by nightmares. And eerier still are the moments of waking silence, in which Lena asks her to turn down her music.

“What music?”

“The symphonic,” comes the reply, always. “Is it not you?”

Kara swallows. “No.”

“You should talk to your super. Your neighbors shouldn’t play such loud music at all hours." 

Except it’s 8pm when she says this, and now Kara wonders how often Lena hears it.

She wonders if maybe having such power at her fingertips didn’t leave it’s mark on Lena after all.

Lena gets the results of her background check on Leonard Peabody less than a week after she orders it. Kara meets her at L-Corp for lunch, and finds her sitting on the couch with long features.

"Hey…” she says softly. “Is everything okay?”

“Vanya.” Lena looks at her. “Her new friend isn’t… who he says he is.”

Kara sits next to her on the couch. “How bad is it?”

Lena’s lips twist uncertainly. “He spent a decade in prison for murdering his father.”

“Oh my god…”

“It might not… there’s a lot of reasons a boy might kill his parents.” She swallows. “Too much doesn’t make sense, Kara. First Vanya’s powers, now this…?”

Lena hasn’t quite explained what she knows about Vanya. Only that Vanya is by far the unpowered girl she’s cast herself as. She’s hesitated digging too deep too quickly, but Kara senses that Leonard’s subterfuge might have prompted Lena to finally act.

“I should tell Vanya. I just… I don’t know if she’s willing to hear it, and…”

“You just found her again.”

Lena nods, even as a flush creeps up her neck. “It’s foolish, I know. We were barely eight when I was given to the Luthors, and none of us were ever that close–”

Kara hates the way Lena talks about her transition into the Luthor family. Hates the passive verbs that communicate young Lena’s lack of agency so plainly, and further cement the suspicions Kara has the Luthors treated Lena no more kindly than Hargeeves had.

She worms closer on the couch, until she can thread her arm through Lena’s and lean her head against her shoulder. Lena softens at the contact, but her features remain clouded with doubt. 

“You may not have been close then, but you are now,” Kara points out. “And I’m sure she feels the same way. She wouldn’t call if she didn’t find value in your talks.”

Lena nods again. “Yeah.” She sighs. “I’ll call her.”

And she does. But Vanya doesn’t answer. It’s the first time a call between them goes unanswered, and while Lena tries to shrug it off, she knows something’s wrong. It’s the same kind of wrong as the night Lionel died, but she still tries to ignore it.

She tries again before bed that night, and follows up with a text that goes similarly unanswered. Doing her best to ignore the anxiety writhing deep in her belly, Lena falls asleep next to Kara, and opens her eyes moments later to utter darkness. 

She knows what it is in a instant– the deprivation chamber. She floats in the same nothingness she did for days on end as a child, locked inside a tube until she could produce brighter, sharper premonitions. Only this time, she isn’t alone. A voice calls, silent but desperate, and when Lena blinks, she stands beside Vanya, and watches as her sister pounds against a locked door. There’s a narrow window in the hatch, and beyond it the other four argue soundlessly as if neither Vanya nor Lena exist.

“Lena…” A voice calls, and Lena looks back to Vanya, believing her the source. But Vanya doesn’t see her. No one does. “Lena!”

Lena blinks again, and suddenly she’s beating on the door as well, screaming soundlessly.

“LENA!”

Lena bolts upright in a gasp, pawing against the hands shaking her. “No!!”

“Lena, it’s me, it’s me!” Kara’s hands disappear just long enough for the light to flip on. “It’s okay. You’re okay, you’re safe!”

The room comes into focus quickly, and the silent room blurs to the echo of a dream– a normal dream. But it isn’t. Lena remembers what those dreams feel like. This is one of them.

She accepts the water glass Kara offers with shaking fingers, and gulps hungrily. It goes down her chin, over her shirt, but Kara only looks at her in concern.

“Lena….”

Lena gulps down air, reclaiming her breath as she reaches for her voice. In the quiet, she hears the haunting melody of a symphony in concert, drifting through Kara’s thin walls and filling her heart with dread.

“We need to find Vanya.”


End file.
